Dez' 'fleet' thread. Another bl00dy transit!

Well, I’ve banged it on the ramp for an hour to see what it actually needs, and what I’m going to do with it. It’s got a month or so test left on it so it’s make or break for it really.

1.-dislocating front chopped springs. I’ve drilled the cups and wired em in for now but if I keep it it’ll get coilovers.
2. Amazingly Bolloxed bottom balljoint on the pass side. Ordered a new one. £6.88!
3. Rear tyres shagged out. Ordered the finest (cheapest) budgets I could to get it legal. Tyres have gone up a lot recently aint they? £66 for a pair.
4. One front wheel has a flat spot on the inner lip so I’ve swapped it onto the back for now. A couple of them are quite kerbed too.
5. Rear exhaust. Its not there. It’s been unbolted where it kicks up over the axle and binned. So Sc3Ne. Bought a new one for £36. Coming from Poland though so I hope I don’t get stung for duty. I’ve paid VAT on it though so I shouldn’t under £135 if I’ve read the new regs right?
Exhaust will Proably stay stock-ish but I might take the mod box out for ground clearance reasons.
6. Fan is wired to a flick switch on the dash. Investigation shows the switch on the rad has a terminal broken off. Bought a new one. £8 🙄 would have been easier to buy one rather than do the elaborate bodge to bypass it.
7. Front crossmember under rad is bashed in. I think it’s probably been crashed at some point. It’ll stay like that for the mo until I pull it out or make something up. Not rotten thankfully.
8. Stereo on permanently. Needs a switched live finding.
9. Drivers speaker grille missing.
10. Has some other seats bodged in, very badly. There’s enough of the original rails left to sort em out though, just need to pick something to go in with thin bases/backs (I’m tall and the cab ain’t roomy).
11. No v5. That’s a ballache but I think I should be able to tax it at a post office with a v62 if I’ve read the website right.
12. No rear springs. Yeah, you read that right….
I’ll put some back in then probably make up some drop plates to keep it low but with ride quality.
13. Bit of grot on rear shock turrets. Where they ALWAYS rot. Not bad for one of these by any means, but it’ll want attention at some point. Doesnt show underneath though so actually MOTable.
14. Drivers window falls off the runners when you wind it down.
15. Gear linkage very sloppy. Needs rebushing/replacement.

So yeah that’s why it was ‘cheap’! There’s also various cosmetic issues but I’m ignoring those for now.
Nothing insurmountable, all easy and cheap little jobs and I can tell even from a short suspension-less drive, this has potential to be a really fun little roundabout.

It has Good points though.
-New screen last year at £170.
-New ECU and associated parts the year before due to water ingress.
-Wheels are 4x100 15x8 et30. I think they’re XXR. Worth not far off what I ‘paid’ for it.
-rear floor removed and reskinned in decent thick ally, with reinforcements added underneath. That’s Probably why it hasn’t rotted too bad.
- sills, rear pockets, crossmember, tailgate etc are all original and unrepaired. They need the unseal tidying to prolong them and possibly one bit of welding on a sill end but I was genuinely surprised at their condition.
-it’s a 1.3 petrol. Given how older diesels (especially commercials) are being treated in the current climate, I see this as a big plus. It should be future proof for town centres.
-really quite nice newly made tonneau cover.
- it looks quite cool.

So, it looks like I’m fixing it…

Cheers man, just think you’ll have the pleasure of seeing some of these in the flesh soon 😬
My mojo is taking a battering a bit at the mo tbh, between a stupid workload to achieve my goals, being spread across two locations (so double costs for a lot of things) and constant parts delays and hassles some projects are wearing a bit thin. At least with having so much on the go If I hit a wall with something can just swap to something else to keep making progress. Change/rest and all that.

It’s a cool little beast that, I do like them in pickup and car form. The 1.3 is actually quite a sweet little lump, and pretty economic too.

I seem to recall someone on here had a 1.3 pickup and lowered it and it ended up on its roof (rears locked up due to the load proportioning valve)

Focus or mk4 golf front coilovers are usually used on the front of these (although they need the hubs opening up slightly I seem to recall) and I think mk4 golf rear springs are used in lowering the pickups (mk1/2 golf coilovers are used on the hatches)

Yeah, I joined the owners group on FB and did some reading. Current plan is to fix all the smaller/cheaper bits then drive it a bit to see if I want to bother doing the coilovers or just sell it. I’ll do the rear properly with drop plates though which it seems no one ever does with these.

I can see the 1.3 getting more popular than the 1.9d with the current persecution of older diesels tbh. From the short drive I’ve had they seem to go pretty well for such a diminutive motor.

Well bits are turning up so progress is progressin’

Balljoint first. It’s easiest to remove the arm to do these so you can batter the sh1t out of it in the vice. Those rivets can be hard to get out even with the heads ground off and part drilled!



Magic.


And back on. It took a bit of hammering and wriggling to get the balljoint back in the hub but other than that it was pretty straightforward.


I then noticed that where the starter motor has recently been replaced, whatever hamfisted spanner monkey had done it had damaged the attached reverse light wiring doing so, which would explain the no-worky reverse light. Here I’ve unwrapped it a bit and stripped the wire back.


And here I’ve soldered it, heatshrinked and wrapped it back up, and clipped it up as it should be.


Fixed!


Similar was done to the fan switch.
It has been bypassed at this end and some twincore appliance (it was brown and blue!) wire run up to the dash.


To this. Bodgetastic.


I repaired the wires at the bottom end-


Wrapped em back up and fitted the new switch.




The original issue was one terminal had broke off in the switch.


Can’t believe the efforts someone went to to not spend £8 on a new switch…

Loving those seats! What are they from???

I shall investigate further then, thank you very much for the info.

I'll send you a pm rather than cluttering your thread mate.

Still the old school OHV Favorit engine. Which VW hung onto into the Fabia funnily enough as my mum has a 52 plate with a 1.4 Actual Skoda engine. Likes to rev, goes well when wound up.